


the long way home

by sunsetdawn20



Category: The Odyssey - Homer
Genre: Community: comment_fic, F/M, penelope pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24003529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetdawn20/pseuds/sunsetdawn20
Summary: In a way it had been this she missed most – this unhealthy obsession they both have with trying to be the smartest person in the room.Prompt used: Penelope/Odysseus "I love you." - "I know."
Relationships: Odysseus/Penelope (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2015, Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	the long way home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TourmalineQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineQueen/gifts).



> Comment_fic fill. To (hopefully) bring some joy to the recipients my challenge to myself is to fill one prompt each day from the same day five years ago. Today's prompt is: The Odyssey, Penelope/Odysseus, "I love you." "I know." from May 4 2015

She remembers him as a young man. Not as athletic as many others, not as undeniably handsome either, but he had a sharp wit and his eyes were always burning with worlds. He made fools of the arrogant and shone a light on the weakness of the mighty and from the first time she saw him, Penelope knew that Odysseus had the power to make kingdoms rise and fall.

\---

“How will you mourn me if I die,” he asked with a light-hearted, charming smile on the eve of setting out to war. He was on top of her, naked and familiar and _hers_.

Penelope said nothing. They both knew he would come home alive. He always did.

She pressed her weight against him, rolled him onto his back and sat astride him. He fought but only in jest, let his arms be pinned down as she leaned over him, her flowing brown hair caging him in. 

“You’d better hurry home or you might find me lying in a new bed,” she said.

He grinned. They both knew she would never betray him. She never did.

He pulled her down into a deep kiss and they made love for hours that night. They said their goodbyes with their bodies and silently agreed not to say them with words. And yet, next morning, as he was leaving, a silent confession burst out of her:

“I love you.”

He looked at her, expression carefully hiding his thoughts but his eyes full with love as he said:

“I know.”

\---

The first year she was full of worry and hope and restlessness.

The second was worse – she found it impossible to distract her thoughts from news of the war. She kept dreaming of him cut open, his insides spilling onto a sandy beach.

The third year she forced herself to live, to enjoy time spent with her son, to find beauty in every sunrise and a reason to go on.

Somewhere in the fourth year she stopped counting. His absence hurt, her bed was cold and large at first, but the terrible truth is, one can get used to anything. So when after ten long years the first ship returned home, for a brief moment Penelope felt only dread. She’d become used to life on her own, to life that didn’t circle around Odysseus’ light. But as soon as it came that thought faded and was replaced with joyful anticipation. She walked down to the bay every day, watching the horizon for new arrivals. Declined invitations, unwilling to leave the house lest he arrive when she wasn’t there. But with every passing week her anticipation grew increasingly stale. The ships kept arriving, but not his and without noticing Penelope spent an entire year staring out windows.

Maybe it was her melancholy mood that attracted them, like the smell of too ripe fruit attracts wasps. Maybe they’d been lying in wait since the day her husband had left. But not a year after the end of the war they started pouring in.

Suitors.

She was firm and polite at first but more just kept coming, expecting to be treated as royalty in her house and bed. She tried to subtly get rid of them, but they resolutely refused to understand her meaning and anything more forward would have been treated as open hostility and rendered her vulnerable. So she decided to use the only currency she’d believed in for decades: her mind. She had no idea she would weave herself into a legend along the way.

\---

It’s harder than she expected. Some days she wants to take an axe at that damn weaving stool and smash it to bits – instead she lies with ease and smiles when all she wants is to smack those fools in the face. She resents them. But there are times when she resents Odysseus more – not for having left, not for taking his sweet time to return home (and return he will, she knows it in her bones) – she resents him from the bottom of her heart for having ruined her for all other men forever.

No matter how appealing they are, how young, how devastatingly handsome, how charming or playfully arrogant or good with their words – she can’t stand to be in their presence for longer than minutes without wanting to scream. Even now, almost two decades after he left, the sharpness of Odysseus’ mind burns brightly in her memory and every other man seems unbearably dull in comparison.

\---

She recognises him in an instant – despite the clever disguise, or maybe because of it. Only her Odysseus would sneak into his own home like a thief, would flaunt his skills and wit instead of just claiming what is rightfully his. Only he would test her too through this clever ploy when all she’s been doing for twenty endless years is prove day in day out that she’s true to her vow.

Only he would stand in front of her, blood of a few stubborn suitors still on his skin, a beggar’s disguise revealing his aged body. There is weariness in his stance, the same she recognizes in her own. She wonders if he can see the grey in her hair, the lines around her eyes. There are lines around his, and somewhere deep in his sea blue eyes there are stories he will never tell her of faraway lands, of monsters and gods and women.

And for one fleeting moment she hates him more than any of those brutish suitors that had tormented her.

So she decides to test him in return with a well-timed lie about moving their unmovable marital bed out of her room and as he flies into unfounded rage, Penelope starts smiling. This battle of wits finally resurrecting memories from deep inside her bones. In a way it had been this she missed most – not the companionship, or the nights of passion, not even the shared joy for life. It was this unhealthy obsession they both have with trying to be the smartest person in the room.

Eventually he notices her quiet smile and stops talking. He shakes his head and steps close to her, for a moment he looks like he can’t decide if he wants to kiss or strangle her.

“I love you,” he says.

The quiet serenity of his voice carries not just the depth of his feelings but regret too, apologies too – for all the women, for all the longing to be elsewhere, for all that stolen time. Apologies he will never speak but she understands anyway.

Penelope smiles softly, reaches out to brush a slowly greying lock of hair out of his eyes and says: “I know.”


End file.
